Going Green
We all hear discussions around greener lifestyles and Eco living, but what does Going Green actually mean? It means to become more environmentally aware and friendly and to make decisions which will lead to more ecologically responsible decisions and lifestyles. It means looking at the way we lead our lives. How we build our houses, what we wear, what food we eat and how we dispose of our waste. The main driver of a greener lifestyle is to protect and preserve our natural resources and environment not just for our generation but for future generations.
One of the ways in which we can become “greener” is to look at how we build and heat our homes. For the average UK household, heating is responsible for over half of each month’s energy bills, the costs which are rising sharply, but without getting into the maths of your energy bills, using that much energy pumps a significant volume of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. This is why the UK government has banned the installation of gas boilers from 2025 and will only allow alternative, low emission, sources of energy such as heat pumps or solar panels to be fitted.
The other aspect of our central heating system is how much of the heat we generate to heat our homes do we allow to escape due to poor, or in some cases no insulation in walls and loft spaces. How efficient is our old double glazing? Are our windows and doors ill-fitting and draughty?
All of these potential problem areas can be resolved, a heat pump can replace a gas boiler, loft insulation can be fitted, windows and doors replaced and the average house can become less of gas guzzling enemy of the planet, but at a substantial cost. A heat pump installation – Up to £15,000, double glazing – around £4,500, new front door - £1,500. Heat pumps use very little energy to run and your upgraded double glazing and door will cut down the leakage of warm air from your home, so for a cost of around £20,000 you have vastly reduced the carbon footprint of your home.
At this stage, it is worth considering why you might want to make an investment of this magnitude. It is an investment in as much as you will cut your fuel bills dramatically and will eventually recoup your expenditure, although not right away. On the other hand, having substantially reduced you’re your energy spend, you will from day one, cut down your greenhouse gas emissions.
Building a new house offers much more scope to incorporate environmentally friendly living. The structure of the property can be built using eco-friendly materials which have been manufactured with attention paid to the carbon emissions of the process. The house can have a heat pump as the primary source of heating and hot water. Adequate insulation and thermally efficient doors and windows will be a given, but other “green” initiatives can also be integrated. There are now solar roofing systems available which are fitted as an integral part of the roof and would potentially generate enough energy to at least meet the requirements of the household. This energy can be stored in batteries for use at peak usage times or during the hours of darkness, allowing the house to become self-sufficient in electricity which has generated zero carbon emissions. As the UK electricity generation industry becomes more renewables based, much of the country’s electricity demand will be met by wind, solar and to a lesser extent, nuclear power, with conventional gas fired power stations only being called on to meet spikes in demand. If domestic power generation exceeds the needs of a household there is a scheme whereby any surplus electricity can be exported to the national grid, reducing the need for conventional power station use.
There is an argument which says that the new generation electric vehicles may not emit carbon exhaust gasses but they will be responsible for increased activity in power stations to generate the power used to recharge their batteries. If however, as is envisaged, cars can be charged at home using power generated by domestic solar panels, this argument becomes null and void.
No one can argue that we have developed into a consumer society and evidence of that is the number of drivers who renew their cars every three or four years. A modern car is capable of offering comfortable, reliable motoring far beyond that, so why do we feel the need to have greenhouse gases sent into the atmosphere to allow the manufacture of totally needless new cars.
Clothes are another example of consumerism within our society. We are more than capable of manufacturing clothes which would last for years, not months. Think of how many shirts, trousers, blouses, skirts or dresses each of us have hanging in our wardrobes above our selection of shoes. Each of these has required harmful emissions to be released into the atmosphere during their manufacture.
We should also look at the food we eat. Locally produced food is kinder to the environment as it cuts down the distance large diesel trucks need to travel, or in some cases, aircraft need to fly to deliver our food which sometimes travels hundreds or thousands of miles to get to our tables. In the UK, we buy lamb from New Zeeland then transport it half way round the world when we produce lamb at home. Lambs, along with cows are not eco-friendly as, during their life time they emit large quantities of methane, a gas much more damaging to the atmosphere than carbon dioxide.
It is also true to say that we are not good at disposing of our waste. Part of the problem is that much of the packaging we are given when we buy things is not recyclable. Buying pears from a supermarket recently, part of the plastic packaging was recyclable, part of it was not. Why can we not have all of the plastic recyclable? Our non-recyclable waste is taken away and either incinerated or sent to a landfill site, neither of which maybe in this country. We sell the waste, fill a ship with it and send it half way round the world for someone else to dispose of it, either by landfill or incineration.
One thing is clear, we must become “greener” to protect the planet for future generations as well as our own. We need to change how we think on many issues of everyday life and we should always remember, “If we always do what we’ve always done, we’ll always get what we already have.”